Saturday, January 31, 2009

Favorite Placemat Bag

The Sienna Flowers Cream Purse. I love this bag so much there is a really really good chance that if you try to find it on my Etsy page it might be gone. I might have to keep it. It will be a matter of the perfect outfit calling for the bag and that will be it, it will be a keeper. It happens more than I'd like to admit with earrings, I post them and then I MUST wear them, so then they are mine! I really like the floral print here, that the dark brown outline is most of the print but that there is one major sienna colored flower. Gorgeous. Loving the Sienna color.


Friday, January 23, 2009

Placemat Bags

I've been spending the last couple of crafting sessions working on bags! Cute little bags! Most of the bags are very simple construction made from fun placemats that I've found at Target and World Market. I love the prints and this is an easy way to work with those fabrics and make something really cute with them! I've already sold three of these in the past couple of weeks, two to my friend Diane and one on Etsy today, woohoo! Here are the three I posted this morning (the pink one sold almost immediately!):


I also have been dying to make one of the Bamboo Handled Purses from Little Birdie Secrets' tutorial. So last night when I was supposed to be writing my lecture for today, I procrastinated by starting this little bag. Now Little Birdie Secrets used a thicker interior decoration fabric and since I didn't have any of that in my stash that would make a cute bag (or the bag of dreams anyways), I decided to line mine. I got it about half done last night, cutting and sewing the main part of the bag and added the handles this evening. It really came together quite nicely except for one little flaw, one of my seams shows the seam edge (white with the designers mark on it!). Oops. Guess I was a little tired when I was cutting and sewing after all! I should have cut that edge off the fabric or at least used a wider seam allowance to make it disappear! Oh well, this just means I MUST keep the bag for my own and not sell it :) Which is fine by me, I think it's super cute! And I love the color combo that I chose, making the lining also appear at the handle.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Easy Pocket Wallet

This past weekend I went to New Orleans with some friends and you know what they say, necessity is the mother of invention? Well it worked for me on Saturday. Friday night I started thinking about packing and couldn't find my little change purse that I often use in lieu of carrying around a wallet on nights out. I'm sure many of you know how annoying it is to carry around a purse when you're out for the evening! So I started thinking, maybe I can make one! But I didn't want the hassle of a zipper, so then I thought about the cute tea wallets and how I could make a wallet for my license, credit card, and cash. But I didn't want anything bulky. So I decided on a simple sleeve to hold everything together. I whipped one up with leftover fabric Saturday morning and brought it to the gym to brainstorm improvements with my friend Diane.


Diane suggested a diagonal opening for easy access, which was brilliant since I had put in a cut out tab opening that did not look polished, and here's the result! I finished it with moments to spare as I packed and headed off to New Orleans! This one is still a prototype though, after a weekend of going in and out of my pocket, one of the seams has come loose, so I'll make another one soon with a wider seam allowance!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Tea Wallet Mania



A few months ago I came across the cutest Tea Wallets on Etsy, made by EliteElishi, and typical of the women in my family I instantly thought, "I can do that!" Now I'm a proponent of supporting crafters and I know that every crafter has their own particular style and I do purchase hand crafted things on occassion but I also really love to sew and was excited to see a small project. So I searched online for a tutorial and behold! I found this Tea Wallet Tutorial over at Christys Creations. It was super easy to follow and fun to make. I made a few adjustments for my personal taste, mainly using a regular matching button on the cover and ribbon to catch the button instead of fabric. So I made three of these little wallets assembly style, one for myself and two as little Christmas present extras for some friends. Aren't they super cute! I've very proud of the way they turned out since I don't have that much experience using interfacing!

Monday, January 12, 2009

Happy 2009!

I'm a bit in denial about the new year. 2009. It seems so far in the future and yet here we are. I've been away from the blog for about a month, mostly because I went home for the holidays. The beauty of being an academic is all the vacation time, it almost makes up for the amount of work you take home with you the rest of the year! I had a wonderful time at home, spending time with my Mama and the rest of my family, especially my Niece Em and Nephew Jo-Jo. I visited with lots of friends, High School gals and my Colby girls! And I turned the inevitable 30. It was a crazy busy, fun filled, love filled, and snow filled winter break and I'm giving you a little photo montage of the vacation to catch you up to speed!

The Gingerbread house that Emi and Mom made!


Mom's favorite Nativity scene.


Emi and Jo-Jo playing in the snow!


"Who's the King of the Mountain? Joey!"